Setu Unveils Sesame, India’s First BFSI-Focused Large Language Model

Setu, a leading Indian fintech company and part of the Pine Labs Group, has unveiled Sesame, India’s first Large Language Model (LLM) specifically designed for the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector. Developed in collaboration with indigenous AI research firm Sarvam AI, this groundbreaking initiative marks a significant milestone in the adoption of advanced AI technologies in the financial services industry.

A “ChatGPT Moment” for BFSI

The unveiling of Sesame took place at Adbhut India, an event organized by the non-profit People+ai, in the presence of prominent figures from the fintech, AI, and digital public infrastructure domains, including Nandan Nilekani, Shankar Maruwada, and Tanuj Bhojwani. Setu and Sarvam AI have hailed this development as a “ChatGPT moment” for the BFSI sector, underscoring its potential to revolutionize financial services.

Leveraging India’s Digital Infrastructure

Sesame leverages the rich data ecosystem enabled by India’s digital infrastructure to power various features, including improved credit underwriting, fraud detection, loan monitoring, upsell or cross-sell, and personal finance advisory. By combining a domain-specific LLM with delivery models, Setu and Sarvam AI have created a solution that is both domain- and region-specific, tailored to the unique requirements of India’s BFSI sector.

Harnessing Financial Data Responsibly

One of the key strengths of Sesame is its ability to harness vast amounts of financial data available both internally and externally in a compliant manner. This approach enables enterprise customers to make smarter and faster credit decisions, while also providing hyper-personalized financial services to their customers across their entire lifecycle.

Innovators Behind Sesame

Sarvam was founded in July 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, who previously worked at Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani-backed AI4Bharat. Sarvam develops a full-stack offering for Generative AI, ranging from research-led innovations in training custom AI models to an enterprise-grade platform for authoring and deployment. The company received around $41 million in funding from Lightspeed.

A Vision for Smarter Financial Services

Setu, founded in 2018 by Sahil Kini and Nikhil Kumar, is an API infrastructure provider offering services across bill payments, savings, credit, and payments. With the Reserve Bank of India’s license to operate as an account aggregator, Setu works closely with banks, insurance companies, lending firms, AMCs, and other financial institutions for financial architecture integrations.

Through Sesame, Setu aims to empower BFSI customers to make smarter and faster credit decisions, while providing hyper-personalized financial services across the entire customer lifecycle.